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"THE VICTIMS STOOD, WITH FAGOTS PILED AROUND."- Page 266.

Gazing with calm indifference in their Lean from a window in the turret's

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The church-bells tolled, the chant of monks drew near,

Loud trumpets stammered forth their notes of fear,

A line of torches smoked along the street,

There was a stir, a rush, a tramp of feet, And, with its banners floating in the air, Slowly the long procession crossed the square,

And, to the statues of the Prophets bound,

The victims stood, with fagots piled around.

Then all the air a blast of trumpets shook,

And louder sang the monks with bell and book,

And the Hidalgo, lofty, stern, and proud,

Lifted his torch, and, bursting through

the crowd,

Lighted in haste the fagots, and then fled,

Lest those imploring eyes should strike him dead!

O pitiless skies! why did your clouds retain

For peasants' fields their floods of hoarded rain?

O pitiless earth! why open no abyss To bury in its chasm a crime like this?

That night, a mingled column of fire and smoke

From the dark thickets of the forest broke,

And, glaring o'er the landscape leagues away,

Made all the fields and hamlets bright as day.

Wrapped in a sheet of flame the castle blazed,

And as the villagers in terror gazed, They saw the figure of that cruel knight

His ghastly face illumined with the

height, glare,

His hands upraised above his head in prayer,

Till the floor sank beneath him, and he fell

Down the black hollow of that burning

well.

Three centuries and more above his bones

Have piled the oblivious years like funeral stones;

His name has perished with him, and no trace

Remains on earth of his afflicted race; But Torquemada's name, with clouds o'ercast,

Looms in the distant landscape of the Past,

Like a burnt tower upon a blackened heath,

Lit by the fires of burning woods beneath!

INTERLUDE.

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Give greater pleasure and less pain Than your grim tragedies of Spain!"

And here the Poet raised his hand, With such entreaty and command, It stopped discussion at its birth, And said: "The story I shall tell Has meaning in it, if not mirth; Listen, and hear what once befell The merry birds of Killingworth !"

THE POET'S TALE.

THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH.

It was the season, when through all the land

The merle and mavis build, and build

ing sing

Those lovely lyrics, written by His hand, Whom Saxon Cadmon calls the Blitheheart King;

When on the boughs the purple buds expand,

The banners of the vanguard of the Spring,

And rivulets, rejoicing, rush and leap, And wave their fluttering signals from the steep.

The robin and the bluebird, piping loud, Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee;

The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud

Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be;

And hungry crows assembled in a crowd, Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly,

Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said:

"Give us, O Lord, this day our daily

bread!"

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The wrath of God he preached from year to year,

And read, with fervor, Edwards on the

Will;

His favorite pastime was to slay the deer In Summer on some Adirondac hill;

E'en now, while walking down the rural | Alike regardless of their smile or frown, And quite determined not to be laughed down.

lane,

He lopped the wayside lilies with his

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These came together in the new townhall,

With sundry farmers from the region round.

The Squire presided, dignified and tall, His air impressive and his reasoning sound;

Ill fared it with the birds, both great and small;

Hardly a friend in all that crowd they found,

But enemies enough, who every one Charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun.

When they had ended, from his place apart,

Rose the Preceptor, to redress the wrong,

And, trembling like a steed before the start,

Looked round bewildered on the expectant throng;

Then thought of fair Almira, and took heart

To speak out what was in him, clear and strong,

"Plato, anticipating the Reviewers, From his Republic banished without pity

The Poets; in this little town of yours, You put to death, by means of a Committee,

The ballad-singers and the Troubadours, The street-musicians of the heavenly city,

The birds, who make sweet music for us all

In our dark hours, as David did for Saul.

"The thrush that carols at the dawn of day

From the green steeples of the piny wood;

The oriole in the elm; the noisy jay, Jargoning like a foreigner at his food; The bluebird balanced on some topmost spray,

Flooding with melody the neighborhood;

Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng

That dwell in nests, and have the gift of song.

"You slay them all! and wherefore? for the gain

Of a scant handful more or less of wheat,

Or rye, or barley, or some other grain,

Scratched up at random by industri

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